High Court orders release of man detained under Public Safety Act

The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and Ladakh has quashed the preventive detention of a man, who was detained under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA), and ordered his release from preventive custody.

Justice MA Chowdhary quashed the PSA order slapped against Mohammad Jaffer Sheikh, a resident of Dool in Kishtwar district, who was booked under Section 8 of the J&K Public Safety Act, 1978. He was booked to prevent him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the “security of the state”.

After hearing Advocates SS Ahmed and Rahul Raina appearing for the petitioner and Advocate Eishaan Dadhichi appearing for the Government of J&K, Justice MA Chowdhary observed that the detainee is stated to be involved in three FIRs registered at Kishtwar and involvement of the accused in the these cases appears to be heavily weighed with the detaining authority while passing the impugned detention order.

The petitioner's counsel argued that the detainee was not informed of the time period within which he could approach the detaining authority as well as government against the order of detention by way of filing representation and that the FIRs filed in 1997, 2015 and 2019 were made the basis for passing the detention order which has no proximate link with the necessity for detention.

Justice Chowdhary observed that as Daily Diary Reports (DDRs) entries recorded against the petitioner are concerned, a perusal of the grounds of detention would show that those have not culminated in any criminal cases and merely recording the DDRs alleging no specific acts cannot be the ground to detain a person.

With regard to the representation of the detainee, the court observed that in the counter affidavit filed by the District Magistrate, Kishtwar, nothing was whispered that any representation was received from the detainee, yet the record produced by the authorities would reveal that Additional District Magistrate, Kishtwar, has forwarded the representation of the petitioner to the Principal Secretary, Home Department, with copy to the SSP, Kishtwar, for necessary action on the representation.

Justice Chowdhary observed that the record was silent with regard to the disposal of the representation and its communication to the petitioner, which thus vitiates the impugned detention order.

While referring several judgments of the Supreme Court of India, Justice Chowdhary observed that personal liberty was one of the most cherished freedoms, perhaps more important than the other freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution and it was for this reason that the founding fathers enacted the safeguards in Article 22, so as to limit the power of the state to detain a person without trial, which may otherwise pass the test of Article 21, by humanising the harsh authority over individual liberty.

With these observations, Justice MA Chowdhary allowed the Habeas Corpus petition and accordingly quashed the impugned detention order passed by the District Magistrate, Kishtwar, and directed that the detainee be released from the preventive custody forthwith, if not required in any other case(s).